FAQ

The club.

Who can join?

If you work in ISEM then well, you're already part of the club. Welcome :)

We unfortunately don't have the bandwidth to invite everyone in Montpellier yet, but maybe one day.

How do I join?

Well, you have already found this website, keep it in your bookmarks: ⭐.
To see what's happening day-to-day, follow this invitation link to join our zulip chat room: ⭐.

Why the name?

The dev in "dev club" stands for development, as in "developing computer programs", which actually stands for "writing code" like in "writing a script", but also extends to "composing algorithms", "designing software", "assembling pipelines", "creating applications", "authoring libraries" etc.

Much of the complicated computer science stuff that people in our lab(s) become confused or reluctant about, be it related to machines, disks/RAM/CPU/GPU, computation models, operating systems, networks, versions numbers, algorithmic complexity, whatever.. revolves around this peculiar phenomenon that a human being can write a computer program. Becoming confident with this phenomenon makes you confident with a large region of the computer science world. This is what the dev club would like to focus on.

What kind of support do you provide?

🎓 I need to learn how to do <X> with my computer.

You're in the right place! Come explain what you want to learn in the sessions channel. Hopefully we can organize an in-person session soon to teach you just that.

🧪 I need help to design / fix / improve my project.

The dev-club is only meant to help you acquire general-purpose CS-related skills (mastering a programming language, a new software..).
We really hope this can help, but if you need something very specific about your particular project, then you'd rather find support on either of the following other resources at ISEM:

  • The ISI platform provides hardware/infrastructure support (physical machines, network connections..).
  • The MBB platform provides software/design support (development, pipelines..).
  • The DATA plaftorm provides data support (data management, FAIR sharing..).

You can also find support at Montpellier level with ISDM's Clinique des Données:

with frequent in-person sessions organized in various places to help you with your own project.

💔 I have bugs in my code!

Don't stay on your own! Come explain your problem in the debug channel. We'll do our best to help you. And hopefully we'll learn something on the way :)

⁉️I need help, but I'm not sure what exactly :(

It's okay. Just explain your problem and ask. We'll do our best to help you find the appropriate support :)

What's this Zulip thing?

Zulip is the chat room where we discuss. Follow this invite link to join.

Zulip is 100% free and open source software ❤️
In addition, Zulip sponsors hosted plans when it's 100% useful for academic research. So they have accepted sponsoring the club, and we enjoy a free standard plan on their servers. Big up to them 💖

How do I use it? How do I know what's happening?

Just connect and read what's up. Messages are organized in thematic channels, and conversations are isolated within distinct topics within these channels so we don't get everything mixed up. You can either see all messages in a gigantic pooled timeline with the grouped thread view, or you can navigate within individual channels/conversations with the column on your left. There are numerous settings you can tweak to make the software fit your expectations and improve your experience.

HELP! 🛟 All information there: https://zulip.com/help/.

Why not good old e-mails?

There is too much going on to flood all@isem by e-mail. But you can setup your zulip account to get you informed by e-mail what's happening there.
If you want to participate in conversations though, then you'll need to connect to zulip.

I don't want to install a new app! I already have like <N> different chat groups.

I know, I'm sorry, we all do.

Fortunately, there is no need to install a new application for everything: most of this chat software (Zulip/Slack/Mattermost/Discord/Whatsapp/Matrix/Element/..) can already be run in your internet browser (= Firefox/Chrome/Safari/Edge/Explorer/Brave/Opera/..). You can:

  • Use separate browser tabs to open all of them simultaneously within the same window.
  • Use a separate browser window to not interfere with your daily navigation / research.
  • Use bookmarks to not forget about any of the groups you are involved in.
  • Use a password manager like KeePass to help you securely manage one different password for every website.

Alternately, you can install Ferdium: one single application to run them all.

Ferdium is free and open-source software ♡

HELP! 🛟
Of course, if you need help doing any of that, drop us a line by e-mail and we'll help you through.

Will I get notifications?

Yes, provided you allow your browser or Ferdium to let them bubble up to your desktop.

There are too many notifications!

Every channel/topic can be fine-grained-muted so you can only focus on the conversations you're interested in. You can also setup your notifications settings at the global level.

Can I run it on my phone?

Sure. Just install the zulip app.

What are these in-person sessions?

The dev-club frequently meets to share computer-science-related skills and knowledge. But we don't all meet together at once! Sessions are meant to be small and focused, so that anyone can feel confident in joining and ask dummy questions about the topic they want to learn.

It is only on Tuesdays?

No. Sessions are held whenever we need, provided we find time and a room to host us. Tuesdays afternoon in building 21 are booked just in case, to help us doing that.

Is it only in English?

Communications on the chat room are written in English for inclusivity (there are like 15+ different countries represented at ISEM). But in-person sessions can be either held in French or in English depending on the audience.

When is the next session?

Upcoming sessions are announced within this channel of the chat room. Click on topics prefixed with a date like 2024-10-25 <session>. to figure what we'll cover and whether there is still room for you.
The other topics there are discussions about sessions not yet decided, join in!

I want to join but there is no room left.

Don't worry. Learning together is easier in small groups. Just ask for a new session and we'll organize a new one for you :)

Can you teach anything?

We wish we could, but of course we can only teach what people in the club are confident enough to teach. If you can find your topic in the catalogue, then it means that we definitely can. If you don't, then don't hesitate to ask anyway, we'll do our best to find someone or redirect you towards online resources.

I would like a session on <X>.

Come and ask on the sessions channel. If <X> is something we can teach, then you'll become the owner of the next session.

I have learned a lot, but I'm not sure how to practice now.

Come and ask in the practice channel. Also, there is ongoing discussion whether/how to hold pure practice in-person sessions. We could possibly practice together on fun toy projects. This is always a great opportunity to learn cool stuff. Join in :)

If you'd rather practice on your own, you can also join one of the numerous Exercism language tracks to find thousands of interesting toy exercises designed to help you make progress.

If you're happy with your solution to a problem, come share it within the code review channel to get feedback from the club.
If you feel stuck and don't understand how to get further, come ask for help within the debug channel.
Anything's good as loong as we keep learning :)

Do you play.. games?

Err.. not sure? Depends on whether you get fun when writing computer programs. If you do then *waow-cool* come play with us! Ever heard of AoC for example? Coding challenges are a very fruitful way to practice 0;)